I have to admit I thought my foot injury was a lot worse than thankfully it has turned out to be.

I have to admit I thought my foot injury was a lot worse than thankfully it has turned out to be

At the time of the tackle it was very painful but I managed to play on to the end of the game against West Bromwich when I feared it was broken.

The player caught me with his studs with his leg stretched at full power while I was clearing the ball and I really believe that if he had been any higher he could have broken my leg.

I feel I was very lucky and Trevor Benjamin deserved to be sent off because it was a very dangerous tackle and I have seen players get a red card for much less.

His studs ripped through my right boot and broke the skin and when I took it off after the game my foot had a big lump on the top and it started to swell very badly, so I was very angry because I was worried that I might miss the last three games.

I was very surprised by his challenge because there is no history between us and it wasn?t in a dangerous area of the pitch. There was no chance of a goal coming from it or anything, so he should have thought about what he was doing more because he is a strong boy.

I had problems walking and when I got home I put raw onion and salt on it which helped to bring out the bruising and swelling. This is a natural remedy from back home which I have used before and can be more effective than anti-inflammatory tablets.

I did this all night and although it was very painful and I didn?t sleep very well, it has worked very well and I hope to do some jogging later in the week after taking some rest.

The down side of this treatment, of course, is the horrible smell it made in my house but my wife is very understanding and she doesn?t mind if it means I am fit to play against Preston on Saturday. I am walking a lot better now and I can move my toes again so I am confident that I will be all right by then.

IT HAS BEEN a disappointing week in all which started with my trip back to Bosnia for the friendly match with Macedonia.

But he said it was just this once and that in future when I go on international duty I have to be totally focused on Bosnia and not my club.

Unfortunately Macedonia got themselves back in the game and we ended up drawing 4-4 so the manager was not very pleased about his first game in charge.

I had a late flight out of Sarajevo on the Thursday night but I made sure that I trained that morning to make sure my preparation was good for the game at Sheffield, so you can imagine my disappointment when I was left out of the side at Hillsborough.

But I understand that the manager has several defenders to choose from and he maybe wanted to try out someone else for that game, and I was ready to come off the bench if he needed me.

ONE of the team?s biggest weaknesses in recent games has been defending set pieces but for me it is more what we do after the set-play has been delivered.

Sheffield?s first goal looked off-side from where I was watching the game and I would like to see it again on a TV replay, and in the same game we should have had a clear penalty but this was not given. If these decisions had gone the other way things would have been very different now.

The first half was full of chances for both sides and it could easily have been 4-4 at half time, no problem. Colin Healy scored a beautiful goal but our final passes were letting us down and we failed to kill them when we had the chance. For some reason the game changed for us at 1-1 and we lost some of our quality.

It was good to see Ysrael Zuniga looking really strong and fighting to close players down which makes it easier for the team to defend when a striker works so hard like that. As I said before, he should have had the penalty and that shows that he is doing his job well.

But it was difficult for Ysi against West Brom because he is not the tallest man on the field and the ball was coming into the box very high and they had a lot of big boys in there to get it clear.

West Brom play a very good defensive game and put nine men within 20 yards of their own box which made it very hard for us to break them down. They also work extremely hard to close players down and are very well organised. This is their game and we are completely different because we try to pass the ball more.

The two weekend defeats leave us with three massive games to finish the season. The worst thing about our situation is that it is no longer entirely in our own hands. We need to win all of our games and rely on other teams not doing so well. But I remain optimistic and everything could change back in our favour on Saturday.